Metro Vancouver Power Rangers
by JohnMcKinnon
Summary: An original team of Rangers. 4 old people from Vancouver think they have been selected for jury duty, but find themselves thrown into a Power Ranger program run by the secretive Mayor's Council. Can the Rangers use the power of teamwork to protect Vancouver from the hoards of monsters coming their way? Planned to be 40 chapters long.
1. The Dragon Descends

**Notes: The story is about an original Power Ranger team. It takes place in Metro Vancouver, which is a group of 24 cities that form a continuous, urban mass in western Canada. It has a network of commuter trains called "Skytrains." If you have trouble with metric, a metre is roughly one yard. A kilometre is about half a mile.**

**The genders, ethnicities, ages, and many other attributes of the characters were chosen using a random process. The neighbourhood that the Dragon attacks each week is also random.**

_Chapter 1: The Dragon Descends_

It was the beginning of August in Maple-Ridge, and Erika Roberts was driving along the edge of the Fraser River with a couple of aides when she noticed some strange lights up in the sky. She slowed the car down and looked up as a circle of red light appeared. The light grew in size until she began to notice details inside it. There appeared to be an erupting volcano with lava flowing down the side.

Then a large silver face appeared. It came out of the circle, and a long, green body with silver scales on its back followed it. Erika soon recognized it as a dragon with metallic face armour. It flew in the air without any wings. The circle of light with the volcano in it disappeared, and the Dragon began to look around.

"I hope this isn't what I think it is," Erika thought. She pulled her car around a corner and found a residential park there. She stopped the car and hopped out, her aides following right behind her. They noticed that the Dragon was descending.

"Um, shouldn't we get out of here?" a man behind her asked nervously.

Children and parents in the park were screaming with fright, and began to flee, but Erika walked in resolutely. The Dragon landed in front of her, looked up into the air and blew a torrent of flames.

"I am the Awesome Dragon, from the realm of demons and monsters," the terrifying beast growled. "And I want to speak to the ruler of this land. I was told she would be here."

Erika was not intimidated. She crossed her arms and responded, "If you're looking for the Prime Minister, he's a long way from here. If you're looking for the leader of the Coast Salish people, you're looking at her."

"Yes," the Dragon replied quietly. "You are Erika Roberts, the legal ruler of this place."

"Thank you! Yes."

"Then I am here to inform you that I have purchased the rights to do as I please with Metro Vancouver in this dimension. I intend to conquer it, and consume, kill, or enslave all the humans in it. You will surrender this territory to me."

Erika rolled her eyes and scoffed, "Yeah, yeah. Get in line, buddy. You're not exactly the first guy to try this."

"I do not care about the false claims of the Europeans," the Dragon explained. "I bought the rights to this territory, and no one will stop me."

The native leader sighed, and said, "Alright! If you really want to take this land, you can initiate a land claim settlement agreement. The negotiations take about 600 years, but your great, great, great, great grandchildren will be glad that you got started on this right away."

This angered the giant creature, and he began to levitate in the air. "I do not have the patience to wait that long. I want my territory now!"

At this, Erika rolled her entire head back and wondered, "Why does it always have to be this way?"

The Dragon took a deep breath, and then sent flames spewing out of his mouth, setting a nearby building on fire. He turned the other way and set the grass on fire, forcing the three natives to back away. He sent flames over their heads, and several more blasts all around until the entire block was burning.

Over the crackling flames, the Dragon roared, "I will give you one day to decide. Surrender to me, or this entire regional district will burn to ashes!"

With that, the Dragon rose into the air and flew away, toward the mountains. Erika and her aides covered their faces, and ran along the road until they escaped the fires. Erika pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number she never thought she would need to call.

"A beautiful, sunny day, and I'm stuck doing jury-duty." A middle-aged man from India looked out the window longingly, knowing that he could be stuck in his chair for hours. He searched the skies, looking to see if another UFO would appear like the day before. Some people had sworn it was a dragon, others claimed it was a flying saucer, and the government was saying that it was just a hot day, and people were seeing things. He heard a stomach growl loudly beside him. He looked over at where it had come from.

"Oh, I'm so hungry!" the 60-year-old woman said.

"I brought snacks if you want," Oorjit offered, but the woman held up her hands defensively.

"Oh no, I pigged out on chocolate two days ago, so I've been starving myself ever since to make up for it."

"Caroline Leblank," a clerk called out. "You're next."

"Oh, that's me," the starving woman said. She got up, and was led through a different door than the other candidates had been.

"Lucky," Oorjit thought. "She gets chosen right away."

Oorjit waited patiently for a few more minutes before his own name was called out. The Indian man then heaved himself up and went through the same door. He was led into an elevator by someone dressed like a police officer. The elevator began to descend, and continued for nearly a minute without stopping.

"How many basement levels does this building have?" Oorjit wondered.

"A lot more than you know."

When the elevator doors opened, he found himself in what appeared to be an underground train station, with one of Vancouver's Skytrain cars waiting for him.

"You have a secret station?"

"We have a whole network of them," the officer answered.

The train doors shut, and they sped off at great speed underneath the city. Caroline was sitting inside, escorted by another officer. This seemed very strange to Oorjit.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"The two of you have been assigned a very special duty," one of the officers answered. "It will all be explained to you at our destination."

Caroline moved closer to Oorjit and quietly said to him, "It must be where they keep the really bad criminals."

The train flew along for ten minutes without stopping anywhere along the way until it reached another underground station.

Oorjit and Caroline were taken out of the train, and through another doorway. Inside, they found themselves in an office environment with several cubicles, filing cabinets, a room full of boxes, and at the very back, a separate room with a sign beside it reading, "Executive Director."

The two "special" jurors entered, and saw a balding, white man sitting behind a desk. In front of the desk were two other women, one the same age as Caroline, but heavy-set, and another one leaning on a walker, looking to be nearly a hundred.

"All candidates accounted for Gordon," the escort reported.

"Thank you. Please send Jawad in on your way out."

"Yes sir."

The man left, and a minute later, another man came in, and shut the door behind him.

"Good afternoon," the manager said to the group. "I am Gordon Brown, the Executive Director of the Metro Vancouver Secret Crisis Unit. I am afraid that you will not be performing jury-duty as you were led to believe. That was a ruse for a much more secretive operation that we will be asking you to do.

"Does this have something to do with that UFO yesterday?" the heavy woman woman asked.

"That was no UFO," the director answered. "We know exactly what it was, and yes, we need your help to stop it. But before we get into that, I'll first tell you a bit about this organization.

"The Crisis Unit was created by the Mayor's Council in the 1990's in response to the discovery of ancient Indian artifacts that appeared to have unusual powers, and the possibility that there could be enemies out there with similar abilities. My assistant here, Jawad Umarzai, will explain what was discovered back then, and what we know now."

The tall, Pakistani assistant opened a very old book he had been carrying, and showed the group some pictures in it.

"In the early 90's, this book, and several other artifacts were found in the mountains not far from here. Carbon dating has revealed them to be 5000 years old, from an Indian tribe that has since completely disappeared. No other tribes had ever heard of them, or had any oral stories that could be traced to them, so we assume this tribe disappeared a very long time ago.

"This book describes an ancient war that took place between the Indians, and a powerful wizard who had an army of monsters. A benevolent sorceress gave the Indians four wood carvings with magical powers in order to fight them. We found the carvings in the same location."

Jawad put the book down on the desk and pulled out a tin container with four sculptures inside.

"These are the four carvings that the Sorceress apparently created. You'll notice they look new, even though everything else on the site deteriorated with age. We have found that when the paint gets scratched off, or when the sculptures get broken, they somehow restore themselves over time. Whatever powers they have appear to still work."

"Now about that UFO," Gordon answered with regret in his voice. "What has officially been dismissed as a mass hallucination was actually a powerful Dragon that burned down a small park and several buildings."

"That rumour is true?" Oorjit asked.

"Yes," Jawad answered. "It was difficult to keep something like that a complete secret, but we did our best."

Gordon continued. "We intend to fight back against the Dragon using the ancient aboriginal powers. We have taken advantage of the jury-selections that were occurring today to randomly choose four warriors to use them."

The oldest woman, with highly wrinkled skin, and white hair, asked, "Can I sit down? My legs get tired easily." Jawad came to her aid with a chair and helped her to get comfortable.

Gordon went on, "Over the next several months, the four of you will be defending the city from the Dragon, and any other magical monsters that may appear, but you will have the cover story of being jurors at a really long trial. You will be paid for your service, and any jobs you may have will be legally protected. You will enjoy all the benefits of a typical juror, but the nature of your duties will be different."

Jawad took the white wood carving out of the container and handed it to the old woman sitting in the chair, looking tired and confused.

"Isabelle Morton," Gordon said, "You will have the white wood carving, and the power of the Seagull."

Jawad next gave a carving to the thin, starving Caroline.

"Caroline Leblank, you will have the blue carving, and the power of the Beaver."

"Mary Roberts, you shall have the Green wood carving, and the power of the Moose."

Finally, Oorjit got his sculpture.

"You will have the red wood carving, and the power of the Grizzly Bear. You will also be the leader of the team when in battle."

Oorjit, who was himself a little old and overweight, looked at the other team members with doubt. "I'm 67 years old Mr. Brown, and nobody here looks much younger."

Gordon responded. "You and Ms. Morton are both past retirement age, and can ask to be dismissed from the program if you like."

"I am willing to perform my duties if that is what you wish. I just question whether you shouldn't be relying on people who are in better shape than us."

Jawad responded, "These wood carvings will give you magical abilities far beyond anything ordinary humans can achieve. Discriminating based on age or strength would be pointless. Even your cognitive abilities should be sharpened once you transform. So when our random selection came up with four old people, we went along with it."

"The Dragon is expected to return to Maple Ridge in about two hours," Gordon informed them. "We believe his inter-dimensional travel would have left him extremely weak and tired, so you should have a good chance at beating him, even with minimal training. Jawad will give you the crash course on your powers en route, and hopefully you will learn enough to manage your first victory. Good luck."

The four new Power Rangers left the office, and got back on the underground train, which sped east toward Maple Ridge. Along the way, Jawad taught them the basics of how their powers would work, and what their limits would be. He avoided teaching them about most of their weaponry, as he expected the fight with the Dragon would be primarily a zord battle.

At about three in the afternoon, the Dragon returned to the charred remains of what had previously been a park, and four old people were waiting for him.

"Where is Erika Roberts?" the Dragon demanded.

"For safety reasons, everyone has been evacuated from this area except for us."

"And who are you?"

"I am Oorjit, and we are the defenders of Metro Vancouver."

"I demanded yesterday that this territory be surrendered to me."

"Well the answer's no," Mary replied.

"Let's do it ladies." Oorjit held his small wood carving out in front of himself and shouted, "Grizzly Bear!"

The two middle aged women followed.

"Beaver!"

"Moose!"

Magical energy swirled out of their wood carvings and surrounded them. They felt their bodies stretching and transforming, while they became engulfed in colourful spandex. They became Power Rangers wearing costumes that were colour coded for their animal, and dark helmets covering their faces. Oorjit felt a surge of power charge through him. Caroline noticed that she felt more energetic than she ever had.

"Where's the button on this thing?" Isabelle was poking it with her finger, trying to make the Seagull carving activate.

"Hold it like this," Mary told her, helping the old lady to position it correctly. "And say the name of the animal."

"Bird!" she said, but nothing happened.

"It's a seagull."

"I didn't know this was supposed to be a seagull. AAA!" She wailed as the wood carving plunged into the 90-year-old woman's body and turned her into the White Power Ranger. Isabelle was wide awake for the first time in ages, and physically felt fantastic.

"Whoa!" She exclaimed with an excited voice. "I thought you were taking me to see a movie! I didn't realize this stuff was real!"

She jumped in the air and did a perfect back flip. "This is incredible!"

"An impressive transformation," the Dragon agreed. "I have heard that humans are sometimes able to put up a good fight. I am looking forward to it."

"That's very foolish of you," Caroline warned, "because we outnumber you."

Oorjit walked toward the large dragon sternly. "Those fires you caused yesterday killed two innocent people, and endangered many more. Surrender now, and you will be arrested for arson. Otherwise, we will take you by force."

The Dragon laughed. "You puny ants can't stop me. I may only be at 5% of my full strength today, but I can still destroy you easily."

The Awesome Dragon rose into the air, spun around, and blasted flames at the four Power Rangers. They took a direct hit and crashed to the ground.

"That actually didn't hurt that much," Isabelle noted, quickly picking herself back up.

"He's coming around again," said Oorjit. "Get your light-sabres ready."

All four of them willed their weapons to emerge out of their hands, and activated their powerful swords. When the Dragon came back, the warriors leaped out of the way, and swung their blades at the beast, dealing minor damage. But the Dragon laughed at them.

"Is that the best you can do? I barely felt that."

Caroline looked at the others. "I think Jawad was right about us needing the zords."

"I agree. I summon the Grizzly Bear!"

A massive bear rose out of the ground, and the eruption of dirt and debris sent the three women flying off to the side.

"Sorry!"

Oorjit found himself standing on top of the zord. He lifted up a door, and climbed inside. The other three got hit by a fire blast before spreading out, and calling their own zords.

The four of them managed to place their hands and feet into specialized slots that their Power Ranger costumes adapted to. They then began to see things through their zords' eyes.

The mechanical beasts were large versions of their wood carvings that were capable of movement, and firing weapons. Isabelle's Seagull flew into the air, though her flight was wobbly. Caroline's Blue Beaver took one step forward, lost its balance, and crashed to the ground.

The Dragon sent flames at the Red Grizzly Bear, and Oorjit had trouble keeping it on its feet. The Dragon knocked the Moose over, then he gained height to look at the new zords.

"The humans might be more powerful than I thought," he realized. "And I am still weak. I have to attack them quickly."

He saw the Seagull coming toward him, and the Dragon faced it head on. Isabelle fired its lasers, and the Dragon shot long-distance lasers of his own out of his eyes. Both of them took damage. The Seagull veered away to avoid a flame attack, and the Dragon went down toward the Beaver.

It was still lying on its back, and Caroline knew she wouldn't be able to dodge, so she had the Beaver shoot a blast of water up to block the Dragon's incoming flame attack. Fire and water exploded, damaging both combatants, but the Dragon seemed to be hurt worse. The Green Moose ran underneath the wounded creature firing lasers out of its antlers. They hit his vulnerable underbelly, and the monster roared in pain.

Finally, Oorjit's bear ran behind the dragon and shot fire of its own, burning the creature's tail.

The Dragon spun around and shot flames everywhere, burning everyone, but all of the zords managed to stay up this time. The Dragon rose high into the air, escaping his attackers, then he turned and growled back down to them loudly.

"You fight well," he remarked. "But I am still tired from my journey here. You will be nothing to me when I am at full strength. Enjoy your freedom for three weeks while I slumber, because that is all you have left."

With that, the weakened Dragon began to fly away.

"You're not getting away that easy!" The Seagull gave chase, firing more lasers, but the Dragon was able to fly faster than the bird, and he soon got out of her range, flying toward the mountains in the distance.

"I lost him."

"That's okay Isabelle. We'll regroup, and let the guys underground figure out what to do."

She turned around and landed, hopping out of her zord. The others had already done the same. They walked over to the secret entrance to the underground train while a few members of the public snapped pictures of them. Then they boarded a train and began the trip back to the crisis unit, with Jawad joining them.

"How do we turn these powers off?" Mary asked.

"I suggest you leave them on until you get back to the infirmary," Jawad answered. "There could be unintended health consequences of mutating your bodies like this, and it would be best to change back in a safe environment."

That sounded reasonable, so the Rangers waited until their train arrived at the Secret Crisis Unit, and they were taken to a different area of the center. It had security check-points in front of it, and appeared to be strongly-sealed off from the rest of the base.

Once inside, Jawad taught them how to will their wood carvings to reappear in their hands and take the power back until it was needed again, and they all returned to normal, or somewhat close to it.

"What happened to my glasses!" Mary cried. "The lenses are flat!"

She showed the others, and although the frames were fine, and there were no cracks in what had once been her bifocal lenses, they had suddenly become completely flat, offering no aid to her vision at all.

"That's the sort of thing I was worried about," Jawad answered. "The wood carvings are supposed to heal the bruises and cuts you got during battle, but there's never a one-size-fits-all solution to health. I assume the wood sculpture decided your glasses were distorting your vision, and it fixed them."

"And why are my pants so tight all of a sudden?" It was Caroline asking now. "I feel stuffed! Like I just ate a buffet!"

"That is the what I'm here to monitor." It was the unit's doctor who spoke now, a Chinese woman named Pamela Wu. I'm going to be checking your vitals against the health records we collected of you already, and we'll look for any changes the powers had on you, positive or negative. I'll start by weighing and measuring you to see if your pants got smaller, or if you got bigger."

Caroline nervously walked around a corner to the scales, while Oorjit and Mary started patting their own bodies nervously, looking for anything weird.

"I don't know about you, but I feel great," Isabelle said. "I don't feel a day over 89!"

The Dragon worked his way deep into an underground cave, and began to sleep, preparing for a full-scale attack when he awakened.


	2. Misleading Statements

A blue car pulled up to the disability parking space at the Vancouver courthouse, and a middle-aged man named Peter Morton got out, and walked around to the other side. He opened the door for Isabelle, his mother, while his two teenage children sat quietly in the back, glued to their phones.

"Swing your legs out Ma, I'll help you up."

Isabelle struggled for a few seconds to move her first leg, and then the second one came more easily. While she was doing that, Peter got her walker out of the back, and then helped her to stand up.

"Are you going to be okay?" Peter asked. "Your court case has been having a lot of long days."

"I'll be fine Pete, don't worry. All I do is sit in the courtroom all day. It's relaxing."

Peter looked at the courthouse suspiciously. "I've never heard of a trial that runs five days a week with no exceptions like this."

"Now you drive carefully on your way to the school," Isabelle told him. "I think you hit a bump on the way here."

"I will. I'll meet you back here at quarter after five."

Isabelle watched her son get back in the car and drive away. Then she slowly walked into the courthouse, where she was greeted by a security guard.

"Good morning ma'am," the guard said, hitting a button that opened a secret doorway.

Isabelle was escorted down to the underground train station, and was soon on her way to the Crisis Centre. "I wish I could take this train everywhere," she thought. "It's so much faster than the road."

When she arrived, the other three Rangers were already there, studying schematics of their zords, and discussing fighting techniques. She went up to one of them.

"Good morning, Mary. How are you doing?"

"I'm great!" she exclaimed, "This is so much better than my job."

"Is your husband still asking you about your court case?"

"Yeah," Mary answered. "He doesn't care that jurors are supposed to keep everything a secret. He's wants to know anyway, so Jawad's getting someone to write up fake stories about the imaginary case that I can tell."

"Oh, I would love to have that. My son is asking me too, and I get worried that I might say the wrong thing. I'm not as sharp as I was when I was young."

As they were talking, the Mayor of Lion's Bay walked in, along with a couple of attendants. Gordon came out to greet him.

"Mayor Wong," the director said. "I've been expecting you."

"Just call me John," the Mayor replied.

The two men went into Gordon's office, leaving the warriors behind.

"I hope things are going well," Gordon said to the mayor, sounding concerned.

"A lot of people are suspicious of us," John answered, sitting down. "The first Dragon-sighting was easy to explain away as a light trick from the sun, but that battle the day after," he shook his head. "Everybody saw that, and some of them got video. The public may suspect that the federal government is the one that sent those zords to rescue us, but the Prime Minister knows it wasn't her. In her mind, it was the either province, or the Mayor's Council. The only question is which one."

"And what does the Primier think?"

"She knows the Prime Minister would tell her if they had such a program. So she very strongly suspects us. She has phoned all of the mayors, asking us detailed questions about what we know about the dragon, the battle, and any secret research programs. We have had to co-ordinate our cover stories closely with each other in order to keep this operation from being revealed."

"If the Province or Feds get their hands on these powers," Gordon said, "they'll turn the zords into art displays and let the regional district burn."

"You have to be very careful with your Ranger team," John warned. "Government spies are going to be watching every municipal building, and tracking anyone remotely suspicious."

"We're being careful with our alibis," Gordon assured him. "Besides, I don't think anyone will guess that those four old weaklings are super heroes."

The Mayor looked out the window at the warriors for a moment before asking, "Do you think they'll be ready for the Dragon at full power?"

"They have had three weeks of intensive training, and have morphed twice since the last battle. All of them have demonstrated improvements with handling their powers, even Isabelle. They'll be ready."

"That's good, because it's supposed to be today."

In his cave, the Dragon was holding a creature in his front paws. It was human-sized, but appeared very small in comparison to the large reptilian beast that held it. What looked like electrical discharges were shooting out of the dragon, and into the little creature, which was causing it to mutate.

"It is almost time," the Dragon thought. "It took me too long to recover my strength. Those four special warriors might have developed more skill and power than last time. I will not risk my life against them again. Mutanté, you shall have my strength, and you will defeat them for me."

The Dragon finished his creation, and the mutant in his paws began to move.

"Mutanté, arise."

"I am here to serve lord," the creature replied.

"Good. I will send you and a squad of zombies to attack Metro Vancouver. Conquer the territory of Vancouver-Langara, and if a team of four magical warriors tries to stop you, kill them."

"I am ready, Lord."

The Dragon used his magic to open up a wormhole. Light poured into the dark cave showing the sunny day on the other side of the portal.

"Go," the Dragon commanded. "And prove your worth to me."

Mutanté walked through, and about a dozen zombies followed. She found herself faced with several humans that had been staring at the dark circle floating in the air. The bystanders were shocked to see a bipedal ant, standing two metres tall. Mutanté had four arms, and a triangular head. Her orange skin contrasted with the pale green bodies of the zombies behind her.

The monster pointed two of her arms toward the small group of people, and hollered, "You shall obey Mutanté!" White beams of light shot out, hitting all seven of the people.

Two of them responded. "We obey."

The other five screamed and ran away.

"Only two?" the monster wondered.

The Dragon explained to his minion using his psychic abilities. "Vancouver gets a lot of American tourists at this time of year. They are protected from your magical attacks. Try not to kill too many of them, since that would be disrespectful to the other Dragons in this world."

"I understand. Thank you, Lord." Mutanté then spoke to her zombies. "Bring as many humans to me as you can, but leave the American tourists alone."

The small army scattered, and began chasing people among the flowers and trees in that area. The people fled in terror, but the zombies were fast, and began to haul the locals into the monster's clutches."

Meanwhile, out in Maple Ridge, Oorjit, Isabelle, Mary, and Caroline waited in the burnt battleground where they had fought the Dragon before. They were waiting for him to return, but so far, everything appeared calm.

"Maybe he's taking longer to recover than we thought," Caroline suggested.

"Maybe," Oorjit echoed. "I would really like to get this over with though."

The area had been evacuated once again, under the pretense of a gas leak. The Mayor's Council didn't want the fear of a Dragon attack to hurt their tourism. So the danger had been kept a secret. The Rangers sat on the road, waiting for something to happen.

About fifteen minutes later, they got a phone call. Oorjit answered his phone.

"Yes?"

Jawad was on the other end. "It looks like the Dragon's not going to be in Maple Ridge today."

"Oh, so we can go home?"

"Afraid not. The news is showing a bunch of weird creatures running around the Van Dusen Gardens. They appear to have magical powers."

"I see," Oorjit looked west toward the horizon. "It looks like the Dragon's going to start sending monsters to do his dirty work, just like the old Wizard in the ancient books."

"Yes, you'll have to get over there immediately and save the civilians."

"We'll be there."

"Looks like the Dragon's hoping he can avoid us," Mary remarked.

"Not gonna happen," said Caroline.

The four soldiers knew what to do. They held up their ancient wood carvings, and called out their animal-spirits.

"Bear!"

"Moose!"

"Beaver!"

"Seagull!"

They transformed into Power Rangers, surging with full power.

"Does everyone remember how to teleport?" the Red Ranger asked.

They all nodded.

It had been one of skills Jawad insisted on them learning in their morphed states, and they had all successfully done it at least once.

All four of them shut their eyes, and used the modest psychic abilities they had in their Power Ranger state to feel out the location of the Van Dusen Gardens. Then they opened up four wormholes, just like the Dragon had done before.

The Rangers jumped through, and appeared in the gardens. Three of the warriors came out in perfect formation with each other, but for some reason, Isabelle's wormhole had been off, and she was standing backwards compared to the others.

"Oops, I think I got my portal facing the wrong way."

She spun around, and heard the screaming tourists in the distance.

"That sounds bad," Isabelle said. "Let's go!"

They ran toward the battle, and stumbled into their first zombie. It tried to grab Caroline from the front, but she slammed her elbow down into it, and the creature let go, stumbling back. She then kicked upward, hitting the creature in the chin. It went flying back, and collapsed on its back a metre away.

"Did I kill it?" she wondered.

The zombie groaned, but didn't get up.

"Leave it for now," Oorjit decided. "It sounds like there's more out there."

The warriors ran a little further, and found Mutanté, shooting a hypnosis ray at someone a zombie had grabbed. The captured man stopped resisting, and the zombie let him go.

"I obey," he said.

"Hey you!" Oorjit yelled. "Leave those people alone!"

The monster turned toward the Power Rangers and sneered. "No way! I have instructions from the Dragon to take over this territory, and enslave everyone in it."

The ant then pointed one arm at each of the four Rangers, and shouted, "Now, obey Mutanté!"

The hypnosis rays hit them, but they had no effect. The Rangers' magical powers protected them from the ant's attack.

"Who do you obey?" Mutanté asked.

"Our commanding officer," Oorjit answered. "And that's not you."

"I can't believe we're stuck fighting a puny ant," Caroline complained. "We were supposed to fight a gigantic dragon!"

"You know," Mary said to the monster in a taunting voice, "I squashed a bug that looked just like you once!"

This made Mutanté growl, and she called for all of her zombies to come back, except for the one that had already been clobbered.

"These must be the magical humans the Dragon warned me about," Mutanté said, then she ordered her minions. "Kill them!"

The zombies attacked, 11 against four, and the Power Rangers began to block a series of punches that were thrown their way. Oorjit punched one zombie in the face, then quickly turned to block an attacker from his side. He backed up before managing to kick his second opponent in the shin.

Caroline did a spin-kick, knocking one opponent to the ground, and another zombie tripped over top of the first, falling flat on its face.

"Be careful!" Mutanté cautioned. "Only attack one at a time, or you'll get in each others' way!"

This made things a little easier for Isabelle, who had been struggling against three attackers simultaneously. She leaped up into a tree, and one zombie followed her. She punched it hard, and it fell back to the ground painfully. Another zombie got up and made several attacks, but the white warrior blocked them all.

Mary made a series of punching motions and a couple karate chops, but the zombie she was fighting either blocked or ducked them all.

"Hey, that's not bad!" Mutanté remarked.

The zombie managed to punch Mary in the cheek. She spun around and tried to kick, but the zombie leaped away. Caroline kicked it from behind, sending it crashing to the ground.

Soon, all eleven zombies had been defeated, and the monster ordered them to back off. Those that were able to stand dragged their knocked-out comrades a safe distance away.

"Are you ready to give up?" Isabelle asked the ant.

"Not even close! That was just the introduction. Now its time for the main event!"

Mutanté rushed forward and punched Caroline in the shoulder. She flew back several metres as Mary blocked an attack from the monster's other side. The big ant swung around the Green Ranger and kicked Oorjit away. Isabelle threw a punch, but Mutanté blocked it.

The Rangers fought with the creature for a minute, but were unable to land any hits against it.

"Bring out your weapons, everyone!" Oorjit ordered. "We can't beat her with just our fists."

Oorjit summoned his light-sabre. Caroline got a large hammer that required two hands to hold. Mary had a bazooka, and Isabelle had a large shield.

The Red Ranger ran forward and slashed Mutanté dealing the first damage against the beast, but the monster hit back with one of her arms, sending the Oorjit flying away. Mutanté rolled away from a smashing hammer attack launched by Caroline, then kicked Isabelle's shield. Caroline swung again, and hit the monster right in the face, sending her crashing back hard.

"Way to go!" Oorjit shouted.

But Mutanté fired laser beams at the group, knocking all four of them down.

Meanwhile, the Dragon had emerged from his cave, and was flying over the mountains. He could see Metro Vancouver in the distance.

"I may need to intervene soon," he thought. "I must get in position quickly."

Mutanté jumped in the air, avoiding a bazooka blast, and fired back at Mary, who jumped away as well. The monster then dodged several sword swipes from the Red Ranger before knocking him back again. She grabbed Caroline's hammer, but got rammed by Isabelle's shield, which knocked the ant off balance. Another bazooka blast hit Mutanté, and she went flying.

She quickly rolled over and got back up, firing several laser attacks. A couple Rangers fell, and one tree caught caught fire. Mutanté wasn't sure how this battle would end up.

"Oh mighty Dragon," she called up to the sky. "The warriors are strong. Please grant me your full power so I may become a giant!"

The Dragon answered with his psychic powers. "You have fought well enough to be worthy," he answered. "I will grant you the power."

The Dragon powered up a strong electric charge, and fired it at the city in the distance. It hit Mutanté, and infused her with nearly all of the Dragon's energy. This caused the monster to rapidly grow.

Mary looked up at the increasingly large creature and said, "Well, you wanted to fight something gigantic Caroline."

"It's not a Dragon, but it'll do."

"We'd better summon the zords." Oorjit said. "We'll combine them right away."

The Rangers spread out and called their giant robots to emerge out of the ground. All four of them hopped in, activated the zords, and immediately began to combine them.

The Beaver split into two parts, forming a pair of leg-extensions that clamped on to the Bear. The Moose split up as well, forming extensions of the bear's arms. The Seagull slapped itself onto the front. The Moose's antlers attached themselves to the Bear's head, completing the combination.

"The Multicultural Heritage Zord is up and running," Oorjit announced.

The monster ant had now grown to epic proportions. She crushed several precious trees in the garden below as she approached the zord. She threw two punches at the humanoid robot, but the MHZ blocked them both. They then locked arms, but Mutanté had two extra arms free, and she sent several jabs into the zord. It let go and stumbled back, crushing a piece of road.

"Be careful," Isabelle warned. "There are tourists down there, taking pictures."

"What!" the others exclaimed, almost in unison.

They looked down, and sure enough, there were dozens of people gathering around. Flashes of light from cameras were flickering rapidly.

"Get out of here you fools," the Red Ranger grunted! But he had to turn his attention to the monster's next attack. The zord ducked a big, swinging punch, and then ran deeper in the gardens to get away.

"We may destroy a lot of flowers and trees here," Oorjit thought, "but at least we won't crush any people."

The zord turned around and managed to hit Mutanté in the abdomen. She reeled, and the MHZ launched more attacks. The monster managed to block them all, her four arms helping her again in this regard.

"I think we're going to need the Mega Light-Sabre," Mary said, using her powers to summon the weapon.

The sword emerged out of a slot the robot's right wrist. The Multicultural Heritage Zord immediately used it to slash Mutanté, and she stumbled back.

"Oh no!" Caroline shouted. "The spectators are back!"

The crowd had followed them, and grown in size. The two combatants were now surrounded by gawkers on all sides.

"Why are there so many of them?" Oorjit wondered.

The MHZ took a step toward Mutanté, but she backed up, coming very close to crushing some people below.

"We gotta hold back!" Isabelle told them. "If we chase Mutanté, she'll crush innocent people!"

So they stopped their advance, and the monster regained her courage, and charged forward. She ducked a sword attack, and punched the zord several times quickly. The Rangers wanted to back away, but they couldn't do that without crushing the people behind them, so they took several hits before they managed to knock the monster back with their sword.

Mutanté went back on the attack immediately though. She charged up one of her arms so it had enough energy to be able to block the sword's attacks, and she used her other limbs to pummel the MHZ continuously.

After a minute of this abuse, the zord ran out of power, and began to sink into the ground.

"No!" Oorjit cried. "We're done for!"

They ejected themselves from the sinking robot, and landed among the crowd.

"Get out of here!" Mary shouted at them. "Don't you know it's dangerous to be around giant monsters?"

"But you guys are so strong that you'll win every battle," one of the spectators asserted.

"Is that what you think? Well, get a clue. We just lost!"

The Rangers teleported away before Mutanté could crush them, leaving the crowd of on-lookers undefended.

"You shall obey Mutanté!" the monster shouted.

A wide beam of light engulfed the crowd, and the ones from Metro Vancouver said in unison, "We obey."

The American tourists realized that something was wrong, and finally began to run away. The gigantic insect above them began to stomp around, hypnotizing dozens of people at a time from above.

Back at the Secret Crisis Centre, the four defeated Power Rangers transformed back to their humanoid state.

"What were those people thinking?" Oorjit griped.

"Those gawkers cost us the battle!"

"I don't know what made them think we were guaranteed to win every battle," Mary added.

"I think I might know."

Gordon approached them team, and the director appeared as frustrated as everybody else. Jawad was following just behind him.

Gordon shared his thoughts. "The Mayor's Council has spent the last three weeks influencing the media to exaggerate your powers, while downplaying the Dragon's. They wanted to give assurances to those in the public that were worried about more attacks."

"So they thought they were safe?" Caroline scoffed. "We were crushing trees, and smashing through pavement!"

"Well, obviously, the Council's misleading statements to the public had some unintended consequences," said Gordon. "They'll have to adjust their messaging in the future."

"What's going to happen to the district now?" Oorjit asked fearfully.

"It will take time for Mutanté to conquer everything. Hopefully, people can evacuate, and maybe once your powers recharge, we can try to save what's left. But first, you'd better go to the infirmary and get yourselves checked out."

The four Rangers gloomily walked away, thinking about all the people they had left behind. Jawad and Gordon were left standing together.

"One misleading message cost us the battle today," Jawad observed. "But we tell so many lies in this operation we can hardly keep track of them all. How many more will come back to haunt us?"

"Our lies can't be avoided. We'll just have to do it more carefully from now on."

Gordon went back to his office, leaving Jawad feeling fearful for the future.


	3. Magical Biology

Three hours after the battle between Mutanté and the Multicultural Heritage Zord, the Vancouver Police were ready to launch a major offensive.

"All units in position," came the sergeant's report. Kassandra Lee, one of the Deputy Chiefs of the Vancouver Police force was satisfied that the force was coming together, but she knew the situation was grim.

They had already seen that Mutanté had the ability to hypnotize officers. The ones that had sporadically attacked her already were doing her bidding now, which seemed to be patrolling the area around the monster. Not allowing anyone in or out, except for those that were known to be foreign tourists, most of whom were already gone.

"Any changes in the monster's forces?" the chief asked.

"No, they're still staying South of 33rd Avenue."

That Mutanté would fortify a small area before conquering the rest of the city seemed reasonable to the chief, but the borders she had chosen were odd. It was almost a rectangle, but for some reason Kassandra didn't understand, there were small sections of territory that stuck out for a block or two.

"What do they want with those bits?" she wondered. But then she just shook her head, realizing it didn't matter. She spoke over the comm system. "Let's head in."

Hundreds of police officers approached the border of Mutanté's territory from all sides, having shoot-outs with the officers who had been hypnotized earlier in the day. There were casualties on both sides, but the free police had overwhelming numbers, and quickly got into their enemy's territory.

Mutanté had heard gunfire, but only from the Northern side of her territory, which she was closer to. She headed toward the noise, which didn't take long at her size, and saw the small army of police coming her way. Machine guns began firing at her, but they were too small and weak to harm her. She laughed at the pathetic attacks, and squashed the nearest officers with her foot.

The remaining police hesitated, then the monster shouted, "You shall obey Mutanté!"

They were all hypnotized, and stopped their attack. Mutanté ordered them to patrol the border they had just broken through. Unknown to the monster, the police who came in from other directions were driving through the city, gathering in the monster's vicinity as quietly as they could.

When a critical mass of them had gotten near the giant ant, they attacked. Again, bullets bounced off Mutanté harmlessly, but this time, tazer jolts went into her as well. Still, these electric attacks did very little damage, seeming to mostly just irritate her. She squashed her attackers again.

A few officers lobbed grenades at her from the tops of buildings, and these did some slight damage too, but not enough to slow the monster down. She hypnotized them all. And then the battle was over. The Dragon now had hundreds of police officers at his disposal.

"NO-O-O-O-O!" Caroline cried.

"I'm sorry," Dr. Wu replied, "but it's true. You are a kilogram heavier than before your morph."

"Again?"

"It seems to be a side-effect of the healing powers."

"How is getting a kilogram fatter every morph healthy?"

"You starve yourself on purpose sometimes, right?"

"Only after I've eaten too much!" Caroline protested.

"It's not healthy to go days at a time without eating anything," the doctor lectured her. "My guess would be that the wood carving is trying to protect you from harm during your self-imposed starvation by giving you additional fat reserves."

"But now I'll have to starve harder to lose the weight!"

"I would suggest that you just eat normally, and then there will be nothing for the demorphing process to protect you from."

"But I can't," the Ranger responded meekly.

The doctor had nothing else to say, so she went over to Oorjit, who was rubbing his cheeks with a suspicious look on his face.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Great," the Indian man answered. "In fact, a little too great."

"The healing powers are pretty amazing," the doctor agreed, poking a needle in his shoulder for a blood sample.

"There's more than just being healed," he elaborated. "I think the wrinkles on my face are gone."

Dr. Wu stopped and looked at Oorjit closely. "You're right."

Oorjit's wrinkles hadn't been very prominent, but he had certainly noticed as each one had come into existence as he aged. Now the morphing powers appeared to be de-aging him.

"I wonder if morphing would eventually make me into a young man again?" he wondered.

"I think they might," Mary joined in. "The grey bits of my hair are colourful again. And I feel more flexible!" She pulled a pair of glasses out of her pocket though. "I don't know why the powers gave me this extra pair of glasses though."

"You left your normal ones in Gordon's office, right?" Oorjit asked.

"Yeah, I didn't want them to get flattened again. I guess the powers thought I was missing them, and replaced them for me."

She threw them in the garbage.

The doctor went over to the last Ranger. "How are you Isabelle?"

"I feel energetic, even after everything I've done today," she answered.

Wu looked at her carefully, but couldn't see any physical sign of anti-aging. "If the morphers really can turn back your clock, it will still take you a while to get young enough to see the benefits."

"I think I might be feeling it though," Isabelle replied. "I haven't felt this good in ten years."

The doctor finished checking the Power Rangers out, and she let them go. Isabelle went back to the courthouse to meet up with her son. Mary took the train Eastbound to her home in New Westminster. Oorjit and Caroline stayed at the Crisis Centre though.

Jawad saw them lingering and asked them, "Why don't you two head home? The monster seems to have halted for the night.

"I can't," Oorjit answered. "My home is inside the monster's territory."

"And mine is just a few blocks outside of the perimeter," Caroline added. "Mutanté could get over there in minutes if she wanted too."

"I see," Jawad said. "We don't want to lose our Ranger members to the enemy, so I'll see if arrangements can be made for you to sleep in one of the Skytrains until this crisis is over."

Over the next five days, situation remained surprisingly stable. Mutanté confined herself to the small segment of southern Vancouver, and did not trouble anyone outside of her self-selected borders. A few more foreigners and tourists were allowed out of the conquered territory, but everyone else was stuck inside. Some hid from the monster and the zombies, but it seemed that by day 5, every building had been thoroughly searched by the zombies, and every human inside had been hypnotized.

The Power Rangers were just relieved that they hadn't lost the Regional District from just one battle. Caroline moved back into her home. Oorjit continued to make do with his temporary accommodations. Many Vancouverites shared his predicament.

Many people had been outside of their homes at the time of the attack, and were now homeless, unless they wanted to become a zombie. Tent cities were being temporarily allowed, and governments at all levels were attempting to provide accommodation. All of this was difficult to do with hundreds of Vancouver's police officers missing. People were hoarding food from grocery stores, and crime rates were spiking.

It was estimated that about 60,000 people were in the riding at the time of the attack, and hardly any had evacuated due to government assurances that the Power Rangers could easily defeat any Dragon or monster that may attack. There was outrage at the Mayor of Vancouver, who had been assigned primary blame for the false assurances, but mostly there was fear about what would be next.

The federal government didn't want to find out, and they had spent the week organizing a military assault on the monster. Tanks, troops, drones, and helicopters had all been brought into British Columbia, and were ready to attempt to free the people trapped in Mutanté's realm. The government had made a point of putting those with dual Canadian-American citizenship on the front lines in the hopes that the monster might leave them alone.

Lieutenant Sandy Jones was flying above the Salish Sea, approaching Vancouver from the West. She looked at the little picture of her husband, and children that she had put on her dashboard, and began to brace herself for the upcoming battle.

"Wish me luck guys," she thought, "I'm really gonna need it today."

An announcement began, and she turned her attention to it. It was the commanding officer of the operation, General Boyden.

"Men, women, you are about to engage an enemy unlike anything that we have ever seen. It has withstood attacks from guns and grenades, and also defeated an entire Power Ranger team. We don't know how effective any of your weapons will be against such a foe, which is why we sent nearly everything we have. I know that you are the best fighting force in the world, better than any team of magical Rangers. Remember your training, follow your orders, and there's nothing you can't do. Boyden out."

By then Jones, along with more than 100 other CF-18's flying in formation with her, met up with dozens of helicopters over the skies of Vancouver. Captains checked in with everyone, and made sure everything was in good order, then Jones slowed her fighter jet down, as the others went ahead of her. She was going to be part of the second strike against Mutanté, but first, the bombers were going in.

Finding the monster was easy in the daylight. Mutanté was as big as any building, and the bombers headed straight toward her. The ant saw them coming, but didn't think anything of them. She had never encountered the human military before, and did not know what to expect. She shot a hypnosis ray at some of them in a casual way, but her enthusiasm for this was low. She already had tonnes of zombies, and didn't particularly want any more.

The bombers that had avoided the hypnosis ray dropped 2000-pound bombs down on the city. Hundreds of bombs fell, unleashing tremendous explosions. Most landed on or near Mutanté, but some were far off the mark, causing huge damage to other buildings, and killing the zombies inside.

The blasts that hit the ant were very painful to her, and she was tossed this way and that by the powerful concussive force.

"UGH!" she went. "What on Earth were those?"

The bombers flew away, but then the second wave was on her. Jones approached the monster straight on, and fired a homing missile at her. The missile didn't veer toward her as expected though. It flew past way past her, and blew up a building in Surrey a couple minutes later instead.

"Homing missiles will not track the enemy," she reported, while flying past the monster. "They must be aimed manually."

Fortunately, several other missiles did hit, as well as Vulcan cannon blasts sending the monster flying into a building, which crashed to the ground.

A cloud of dust was kicked up, but the helicopters continued firing Vulcan blasts into it blindly, not wanting to give the enemy a chance to fight back. A laser blast shot out of the cloud though, and destroyed several helicopters at once. Three more laser blasts followed quickly, destroying more.

The dust began to settle, and Mutanté had picked herself up, though she looked very weak.

"You shall obey Mutanté!" she yelled, firing hypnosis rays in several directions. One went just above Jones, but she wasn't hit. She saw several planes that were hit though, and they started flying away.

"Where are you going!" one Captain yelled at them.

"We will not attack the legitimate ruler of this territory," one hypnotized Lieutenant answered. "We are returning to base."

Sandy Jones came around and approached Mutanté again, aiming her next shot carefully. She got hit by a hypnosis beam just as she fired. Her missile hit her target, and the monster stumbled back, but Sandy felt guilty all of a sudden.

"Why am I doing this?" she thought. "I'm invading the Dragon's sovereign nation. I shouldn't be here."

Lieutenant Jones flew out of the battle zone and radioed back to her captain. "Ma'am, I find this assault to be highly objectionable, and I will not participate in it any more. I am returning to base, and I urge you to bring everyone else back as well."

She got no answer though, because too many of her comrades were doing the same thing.

Mutanté returned to firing laser blasts, destroying enemy planes as quickly as possible. Soon, there were none left attacking her. The monster was heaving with pain, but took a few moments to look around and make sure no one else was coming after her. Then she sunk to one knee, exhausted.

Beyond the horizon though, over Vancouver Island, a few CF-18's remained in flight armed with Beyond-Visual-Range Missiles. They had been held in reserve in case all else failed. They opened fire, and ten missiles went zooming over the water, and toward the monster.

Mutanté didn't see them coming. Seven of them slammed into her, with the other three exploding in the mountains in the distance. Those last missile hits drained the last of her power, and she crashed to the ground. Then she exploded.

Her death blast was extremely powerful. A massive fireball flared up that could be viewed from across the Lower Mainland. Everything within 500 metres was flattened, and most buildings within 2 kilometres were set on fire from the heat. Windows were broken even further. Most of the humans and zombies nearby were killed.

One of the CF-18s that had fired the final missiles flew over to Vancouver to inspect the carnage. He found himself flying above a ring of fire, but the military was most concerned about Mutanté. Ground zero was flattened, and there was no sign of the monster anywhere.

"Target destroyed," the pilot confirmed. "Mission accomplished."

"Thank you Lieutenant," his Captain answered. "Then please turn your attention to surveillance of the destruction. Rescue workers are going to need to know the extent of the damage."

"Yes ma'am."

He began circling the skies, describing the locations of the most dangerous fires, and helping to find viable routes for rescue workers to get in.

The aftermath of the battle was grim. 30,000 hypnotized Vancouverites had been killed when all was said and done. Most were killed by the fires that burned for days afterward, many others had been taken out by the initial explosion. Most of the buildings in the Langara neighbourhood were gone, or damaged beyond repair, and would need to be bulldozed.

On top of that, nearly all of Canada's airforce had been sent into that battle, and the majority of it had been destroyed. There were serious doubts about whether the Canadian military could destroy another monster, especially one that had not been weakened substantially by the Power Rangers.

There was now a security issue regarding what to do with the thousands of hypnotized Vancouverites that had survived, and were claiming to be back to normal. No one knew if they could truly be trusted.

The Dragon in the mountains was thoughtfully assessing the impact of it all as well.

"I lost my monster, in the end," he surmised, "as well as my territory. Those missiles of theirs are dangerous. In the future I will need to make sure my monsters can deal with them. Canada will probably not be able to launch an attack on that scale again, but even if they do, I will be ready.

In his hands was one of his zombies. He began to put his energy into it, and mutate it into a monster.


	4. The Improper Document

The Stanley Park refugee camp was crowded with people who had lost their homes during the Airforce's attack on Mutanté, and Oorjit was their newest member. Having been faced with a choice between pretending to be dead, or being allowed to go outside during his time off, but live as a refugee, the Red Ranger had chosen the latter.

"Hopefully I won't have to stay here too long," he told himself. His apartment had been three kilometres away from Mutanté's death blast, which should have been outside the zone of major destruction. But he still couldn't get to it at the moment because the whole neighbourhood was devoted to rescue efforts. It could be weeks before Oorjit would even know if he had a home to return to, or if it had been hit by a stray missile.

He walked past a line-up for food rations before finding a table on the grass with a sign on it reading, "Registrations." There was a line for this table, and the man waited his turn before being assigned a space in a tent. The process was more efficient than he had expected. The Canadian military had supplied large tents for the displaced citizens to use until permanent housing could be found or built for everyone.

Inside, Oorjit found he was bunking with a young, aboriginal man, as well as a Caucasian father and son. There was a split in the tent, and the other side was lodging four women, one of whom was the young boy's mother.

There was nothing for Oorjit to do inside other than claim his sleeping bag, and share horror stories with everyone inside. Most of them were deeply depressed, especially the ones with homes closer to the blast, who had definitely lost everything they owned. Everyone had people they were worried about. Oorjit personally had many friends who lived in the area who were probably either hypnotized or dead. He couldn't tell anyone that it was partly his fault.

He replayed the battle in his mind. "I should have just crushed the spectators," he thought. "A handful of deaths could have spared all of this."

The one fortunate thing about all of this was that it happened in late August, when the weather was warm, and there was not much in the way of rain. Oorjit's first night as a homeless person went fairly well. He got a good night's sleep, received some food rations at the camp, and then went to work along with most of the other campers.

Regardless of their homelessness, or their concern about monster attacks, anyone with a job still had to make their daily commute and put in their hours. Oorjit's job just happened to be working as a Power Ranger, striving to prevent another disaster that could happen at any time. He got to a secret Skytrain station, and made his way to the Crisis Unit.

Everyone assembled in Gordon's office for a meeting.

"The Mayor's Council has authorized the new procedure that will allow you to trample spectators during zord battles if doing so is required to defeat a monster," the director began. "They have already begun to issue warnings throughout the region, so hopefully you won't have a repeat of the problem you had last week."

"That's very good news," Oorjit sighed. "If we could have just focused on the battle last week, I'm sure we could have beaten that ant."

"I don't know if I would call it 'good news,' " Caroline countered. "We're talking about killing human beings here."

"It is an unfortunate necessity," Gordon responded. He then quickly checked his cellphone, which had lit up with a text-message. He frowned and said, "There is a rumour spreading online of a monster attack in Surrey, but it hasn't been confirmed yet."

Everyone else suddenly got tense.

"But it's only been one week!" Mary exclaimed. "We got three weeks last time!"

"It might be nothing," Jawad suggested. "People are spooked and might be imagining things."

"Still, I suggest you unlock the wood carvings," Gordon replied. He turned back to the Rangers. "Until we have confirmation of an attack, we might as well continue. The Mayor's Council wants a little more security on the morphers now that we all know how important they really are. With that in mind, you will now need to sign authorization forms, approved by myself before you will be allowed to morph. We will also be keeping the sculptures locked away when not in use.

Jawad closed the safe that the ancient, wooden carvings had been stored in, and then Gordon's phone rang.

"Yes?" he answered, his face quickly turning very dark. He typed a website address on his computer and turned his screen so everyone could see while he spoke on the phone. He was on a live news feed, displaying a small blimp floating through a grassy area, with a team of zombies underneath it.

"Oh no," Isabelle groaned. "It's real."

"How?"

Gordon ended his call, and passed out four forms that he had been holding, one to each Power Ranger.

"Please read your authorization form carefully, and sign it at the bottom when you are done."

Oorjit read his over. "I, Oorjit Gupta agree to use the Red morpher for the purpose of protecting Metro Vancouver from the attacks of the Dragon, and his monsters and zombies. I promise to not use these powers for any other purpose, and further promise to return them to the Executive Director immediately once finished."

There was then a line for a signature. All of the Power Rangers signed their forms, and handed them to Gordon.

"Come on," Caroline urged. "Let's go!"

Gordon read the first form over carefully, and then said, "Caroline Leblank, you may take the Blue Morpher and go."

"Yes! Thank you!"

She grabbed her sculpture and shouted, "Beaver!" She morphed into the Blue Ranger, but waited inside for the others.

"Oorjit Gupta, you may take the Red morpher and proceed."

"Grizzly Bear!"

"Mary Roberts, you may take the Green morpher."

Mary took her glasses off, and put them on the shelf nearby. Then she took the small, green wood carving and called out, "Moose!"

Gordon spent a longer time looking at the final authorization form though. "Isabeele Morton?" he asked, with emphasis on the double-"ee."

"Isabelle," the old woman corrected.

"Spelled I-S-A-B-E-E-L-E?"

Jawad groaned. "Gordon, that's just a typo. We all know who that's supposed to be."

But the director shook his head. "The printed part of the form lists Isabelle with three E's, but the signature only has two. This discrepancy will need to be corrected before I can authorize anyone to use the white morpher.

"Gordon! We don't have time for this!" Caroline complained. "That monster is attacking people right now!"

"No, Gordon is right," Oorjit said. "We have to follow procedure, no matter what."

"What!"

Gordon turned to Isabelle, "I assume the way you wrote your signature is the correct spelling of your name, right?"

"Yes it is," she answered.

Jawad, Caroline, and Mary all groaned in unison at this answer.

"Then our standardized authorization form is incorrect," the bureaucrat concluded. "You will need to go to our human resource department and get your name corrected in our database. In the meantime, the other three Power Rangers will have to go and face the monster short-handed.

"We can't do this!" Jawad argued. "We've already seen what happens when they don't fight with everything they've got! Just let Isabelle go for now, and we can have the form ready for next time!"

"I'm afraid that just won't do," Gordon stated. "We have procedures for a reason, and if we don't follow them, we'll just make the mess we're in even worse."

"It's okay," Isabelle assured everyone. "I'll get this sorted out pronto, and be right there."

"Fine," Oorjit responded. "We'll go, just the three of us and do what we can."

The three Power Rangers opened up wormholes to the monster's location, and jumped through. Isabelle took her form, grabbed on to her walker, and slowly shuffled out of the office.

In Surrey, the Rangers appeared in a grassy field, with an array of electrical towers nearby. A floating blimp was in front of them. She noticed them quickly.

"Oh, the Power Rangers, three of them anyway. How are you today?" She asked.

"We're in very good shape," Mary answered, "which is better than you'll be in a few minutes."

Blimpini smiled. "Are you sure? Do you recognize who I am? I am the zombie that fought well against you last week, and impressed Mutanté. The Dragon rewarded me for my skill by promoting me and turning me into a monster."

The Rangers were shocked by this. "You used to be a zombie?" Caroline asked.

"Yes, and you'll become one too when I'm done with you. But first, we have to have tryouts to see who will be next week's monster. Zombies! Attack them please!"

All of her minions ran toward the Rangers in an unorganized manner, and they all began to fight.

Meanwhile, in the office, Isabelle had reached the Human Resource office. The manager in charge, Arnold Hamilton greeted her, then asked, "Aren't you supposed to be in battle?"

"My authorization form has my name spelled wrong," Isabelle explained. "It needs to have one of the e's deleted."

"No, no," the manager responded, shaking his head. "We don't make mistakes in our department. We made a resolution about that years ago."

Isabelle sank a little bit and grunted. "Gordon Brown wouldn't let me go into battle because this form doesn't have my name written on it correctly. I need it changed now, or a monster might conquer Surrey."

"I really don't believe any error was made," Arnold insisted, "but if you would like to request a name update, I will need a copy of your photographic identification, showing your new name. I will need to keep it for our departmental records in case anyone ever asks why I made the change."

"Okay, I will go to my locker and get it."

Isabelle walked out again to look for her belongings.

Meanwhile, the Power Rangers were spread out, each fighting off several zombies. Oorjit stomped on the foot of one attacker, then turned around to block a punch coming from behind. He backed away cautiously while deflecting a barrage of blows.

Caroline got her arms grabbed by two zombies. A third zombie attempted to charge into her from the front, head first, but the blue warrior did an upward kick, knocking him straight up before falling on his back. Caroline then kicked to her right, then her left, freeing herself.

Mary ducked under a high swing kick, and countered with a trip-kick down low. Her opponent fell, and she stomped on it, incapacitating the creature.

The zombies were exhausted, and they began to limp away.

"Well, so much for them," Blimpini remarked, as the Rangers got back together, unharmed. "Now it's time for you to die!"

The monster fired a pink laser beam at the trio. It hit Oorjit, who only managed to raise his arms to protect himself. An explosion knocked him several metres back, and also made the other two Rangers crash to their sides.

Mary began to get up, but had to leap to escape another blast that came her way. Caroline soon did them same. Blimpini slowly approached the Rangers, firing left and right.

Oorjit, now further away than the others, had a bit of time to summon his own gun, and fire back. A red laser beam hit Blimpini in the face, and she recoiled in pain. She fired back at the Red Ranger, and hit him again, but this gave Caroline and Mary time to bring out their own guns and join the counter attack. Lasers began to fire in all directions as the Rangers leaped wildly, dodging as many attacks as they could, while firing back at the monster.

All of them took a few hits, but Blimpini was less mobile, and was taking heavy damage in the middle of the fray. She began to rise up high into the air, gaining some distance from the Rangers.

"Heh, heh, heh!" She laughed. "It will be harder for you to dodge when I shoot from this angle!"

She was right. As she fired at the ground, the Rangers tried to dodge the attacks, but when they did, the laser would cause an explosion on the ground right where they had been standing. They were not taking direct hits, but the secondary impacts began to take a toll on them.

Isabelle had obtained her photo ID, and was now in the photocopy room. The copier lit up when Isabelle hit the start button, but then it made a groaning sound, followed by a "Beep! Beep! Beep!"

The photocopier displayed a message. "Paper jam. Please remove paper and try again."

"Oh no," Isabelle groaned. "I don't know how to fix this." She bent over, opened a part of the copier, and saw the jammed paper. She tried to reach in to grab it, but her arm couldn't stretch far enough. "What am I gonna do now?" she wondered.

After trying for a minute to reach the jammed paper, she gave up, and hobbled over to a nearby desk. "Excuse me sir," she asked. "Could you help me with the photocopier? I can't pull the paper out of it."

The young man went over and took a look, and managed to pull the paper out, but when they tried to get the copier going again, it continued to display the same message. The man groaned. "There must be another paper stuck in there somewhere."

He opened the copier up and started feeling around inside. "I'll go look for more help," Isabelle said.

Meanwhile, the other three Power Rangers were leaping this way and that, trying to dodge laser fire, but slowly taking damage in the process. Caroline managed to hide under a tree, but the branches were getting blasted off it rapidly. Blimpini turned her attention to the other two warriors though, who were still in the open.

"Now's my chance," she thought. The Blue Ranger summoned her hammer, and jumped up to the top of the tree, which was burning hot. She ignored it though, and jumped up again, now reaching Blimpini's height. She swung her hammer down, and clobbered the monster from above. Blimpini crashed to the ground, and Caroline landed on top of it, smashing it with the hammer again.

Oorjit and Mary fired lasers at it, and Blimpini's balloon deflated.

"Oh, mighty Dragon!" Blimpini called out. "Please grant me the power to become a giant, and restore my ability to fly!"

The Dragon was already in the air above Greater Vancouver, and he fired electrical energy at his creation, making it inflate to gigantic size.

"Summon the robots!" Oorjit ordered.

The Bear, Beaver, and Moose all emerged, and the Power Rangers hopped inside just as Blimpini was reaching her maximum size. The Bear charged forward, jumped up, and slashed the Blimp with its claws, but only hit the basket that the bottom. Blimpini recoiled from the hit, and spewed some gas in the Bear's face, damaging the robot. She then got hit by the Beaver's arm, making her bounce off the ground before floating up into the air.

The Moose tried to jump up and kick it, but Blimpini managed to dodge the attack, and rose up higher.

"No!" Mary exclaimed. "She's out of range again!"

Blimpini began firing lasers down at the three robots, just like she had done in small form. Again, the robots had a very hard time avoiding taking damage as huge explosions rocked the entire area.

The Moose fired lasers out of its antlers, hitting Blimpini a few times, but the others had nothing that could reliably hit her up there.

The monster concentrated her fire on her biggest threat, the Moose, pounding it many times until the Moose suffered critical damage and began to sink into the ground. Mary was ejected from her robot and had to teleport back to base.

This left Oorjit and Caroline on their own. "We can't give up!" Caroline cried. "If we can just hang on until Isabelle's Seagull arrives, we can still beat this thing!"

The dinosaur and beaver jumped this way and that, avoiding as much laser-fire as they could, but taking heavy damage nonetheless.

The photocopy room now had four people helping Isabelle out, and they finally believed they had the machine in working order. Isabelle pressed the "Start" button and the machine successfully made a copy of her photo ID. The room erupted with cheers and applause at the successful completion of the White Ranger's task. She thanked everybody, and walked toward the HR department, but as she got close, Gordon Brown saw her, and motioned for her to come in.

"I've got a copy of my ID ready," she told him. "Now I can get my form updated and join the battle."

As she entered the office though, she saw Mary, Oorjit, and Caroline standing inside, looking very depressed.

"Are you back already?" the old woman asked.

"We couldn't hold out long enough," Oorjit answered. "We just couldn't hit Blimpini when she was up in the sky like that."

"Well, if you just wait ten more minutes, I can get my authorization form updated, then I'll give it a try."

Gordon shook his head though. "Blimpini is still close to full power," he said. "I won't send a Power Ranger to face her alone. It is very unlikely that you would have enough power to defeat her, and your wood carving might fall into enemy hands if you lose."

"But that means the military will attack again," Caroline predicted. "And who knows how many people that will kill?"

Oorjit nodded grimly. "We'll just have to wait and see what they do."


	5. Brutal Warfare

The day after Blimpini's attack, Lieutenant Sandy Jones was back in her CF-18. Only half of the military's planes had survived the previous attack, and those were only due to the effects of hypnosis rays causing them to leave.

"Maybe I won't be going into battle this time," she hoped. She was disturbed by the effect Mutanté's ray beam had had on her, and was just glad her psychology returned to normal after the monster died.

"Launch BVR missiles," came the order.

Sandy watched several CF-18's firing long-range missiles, the same kind that had successfully destroyed Mutanté. They flew over the water, above the skyline of Vancouver, and rushed toward Surrey.

Blimpini was scanning the ground carefully, looking for any humans that she might not have hypnotized the day before. Suddenly, she heard a screeching sound. The Dragon had modified her ears to be able to pick up on incoming missiles, and she turned toward the sea. There they were, hurtling toward her.

Blimpini rose up quickly, dodging most of the missiles. The ones that were still coming her way were shot down by laser fire. Blimpini had survived the first volley. However, a second wave soon followed. The Blimp was ready for them this time, and she shot them all down. She then aimed carefully and fired laser blasts that went all the way across the Salish Sea, and blew up many of the CF-18's that had been firing on her.

"Short Range attackers," Sandy's radio announced. "Move in for close combat. Long-range weapons are ineffective against this enemy."

Sandy's stomach sunk. 100 planes had failed to defeat Mutanté. A force of 50 seemed even worse. Still, she followed her orders, and flew into Surrey.

Fortunately, most of the pilots with her now had a little experience, and they were able to dodge many of the attacks that came their way. Sandy veered away from what she thought was a hypnosis ray, but then she saw a building explode behind her.

"She's trying to kill us this time!" the pilot realized.

Several planes crashed to the ground, but Sandy managed to aim and fire a missile, hitting Blimpini. She flew past the Blimp, barely avoiding it, and then had to plunge toward the ground to dodge a laser beam. There was an explosion on the ground in front of her, and her plane took damage. Fuel began to leak, but that wasn't an immediate concern. She pulled back into the air and came around for another run.

She saw a dozen parachutes slowly drifting to the ground, and she knew a large part of the attacking force was already disabled.

"How many pilots didn't escape?" she wondered. But she pushed that thought out of her mind and took another shot. Mutanté saw the missile coming though, and destroyed it with another laser attack. The beam nicked her plane, and she lost control over its flight. She ejected, and watched her CF-18 streak ahead of her, tumbling wildly. Then the fuel ignited, and the plane exploded.

Several more planes were destroyed around her, as well as a couple helicopters. One jet retreated from the battle and escaped. All the others were destroyed. Blimpini now turned her attention to all the parachutes around her, and began hypnotizing the soldiers.

"You shall obey Blimpini."

Like before, Sandy suddenly felt a pang of guilt. "I've invaded a sovereign territory again," she thought. "Why did I do that?"

She landed on the ground, and joined her comrades. Like the American tourists before, most of the pilots came from outside Greater Vancouver, and so were permitted to leave. Sandy eventually made her way back home, but refused to take part in any more military missions against the Dragon. She continued to believe that she had fought on the wrong side of the battle for as long as Blimpini lived.

Mary sat in her condo the next evening, holding a bottle of beer. She was watching the news come in.

"The Canadian military was defeated in battle today," the anchor announced. "They have lost all but 6 of their CF-18's, and nearly all of their helicopters after the third monster displayed an incredible ability to detect incoming missiles."

"It's the 2nd monster," Mary corrected silently. "The Dragon was something different." The media was still largely in the dark about the true nature of the conflict, and Mary couldn't tell anyone the truth about it, out of fear of exposing the secret operations of the Mayor's council.

The report went on. "General Boyden has announced that there will be no more military attacks on the monsters until they can rebuild their forces. This means Greater Vancouver is relying on the Power Rangers, who so far have been unable to defeat a single monster."

The image now changed to a cluster of hydro towers. "Many have feared that Blimpini might destroy the Ingledow substation, which would disrupt electricity supply for several cities. The monster issued a statement just a few minutes ago however, saying that she would leave the substation intact. She said that the Dragon does not intend to harm ordinary civilians, and that all of the deaths so far have been caused by the Canadians."

"That was all self-defence," Mary argued with the TV. Her husband chuckled in the next room.

"It is true that the monsters tend to hypnotize, not kill," he said.

"The Dragon will kill us all in the end if we don't stop him."

"Like Mutanté before," the report continued, "Blimpini has confined herself to a limited area. Observers have noticed that the two monsters' chosen territories correspond to provincial electoral ridings. No one has any explanation for why the Dragon would care about these boundaries."

Mary didn't know either. She finished her beer, and turned off the television. She walked toward the kitchen, going past her husband on the way.

"Take it easy on that stuff," he warned her. "We're both getting too old to drink like that."

Mary knew that she was getting healthier over time, not worse, but she couldn't say that to her husband. She put her bottle away, and refrained from taking another.

"The news just keeps getting worse," she told him.

"Well, it has nothing to do with you. It's those Power Ranger's fault. They should get their act together and actually try to win some battles."

Mary had to choke back tears after that statement, and she rushed to bed, feeling grateful for the first time that no one knew her identity.

In Northern Delta, a large, fearsome cat appeared, along with a squad of zombies. He looked at the building in front of him, a veterinary hospital.

The sight of the building made him furious. "The vet," he growled. "They never leave the poor animals alone. They attack us with needles and scizzors, and trap us in cages. Well no more!" He turned to his zombie army. "Break in there, and free the animals!"

They smashed through the windows and grabbed the kitty carriers inside, opening them up. Dogs whimpered at the sight of the monstrous cat, and they ran away yelping at the first opportunity. Humans fled as well, trying to take their pets with them. The monster found the vet inside another room and trapped him.

"You shall obey Aristotle!"

"I obey."

"Good, now get on the table!" Aristotle ordered.

"Yes, Lord."

The doctor sat on the ledge, and watched nervously as the giant cat began picking up needles and examining them. "It is time to get my revenge!"

Back at the Crisis Center, the Power Rangers filed into the Director's office.

"What is it, Gordon?" Oorjit asked. "Is there a monster sighting?"

Gordon nodded. "The police have received numerous 9-1-1 calls regarding a monster at a Veterinary hospital in Delta. So far, he seems to have confined himself in there, but he could move on any time."

"Maybe we can take him out before he gets too many zombies," Caroline said.

Gordon agreed. "I am going to hand out your authorization forms to use the Ancient Wood Carvings. Please read them carefully and sign them."

He passed them around, and all the rangers signed on. Isabelle was the slowest, taking extra time to scrutinize her form carefully, and sign as neatly as possible. She made sure her name was spelled correctly this time, then she handed it back to the Director.

"Your papers are all in order. You may take the sculptures and go."

The four warriors were ready. They quickly grabbed their carvings and morphed.

"Great Bear!"

"Beaver!"

"Moose!"

"Seagull!"

As they transformed, they opened wormholes underneath their feet, and teleported to Delta.

At the pet hospital, the doctor was now trapped in a cage with five needles sticking out of him. The zombies were putting the finishing touches on the make-shift bars.

"Let that man go!" Mary ordered.

Aristotle turned and saw them.

Already?" the monster wondered. "Zombies! Get them!"

The Rangers and zombies ran toward each other and began to fight in the waiting room. Isabelle clobbered her closest opponent with a powerful fist, knocking him onto the receptionist counter. Oorjit jump-kicked a zombie, but was caught in the air by another, who threw him against a wall. The Red Ranger managed to land on his feet on a couple of chairs, and used a little fancy footwork to fight off two attackers at once.

Caroline threw several punches that were all missed by an agile zombie, but then she managed to kick it in the ankle. The zombie bent down in pain, and the Blue Ranger was able to smash it with doubled fists.

Mary jumped onto the counter, threw a zombie into a shelf nearby, then she ran over to the cage. Using her super-strength, she ripped the bars off the vet's cage easily.

"Are you okay?" she asked the Iranian man inside.

"Yeah," he answered, plucking the last of the needles out of himself. "These were all sterile."

"Come out this way, we'll keep you safe."

"Where do you think you're taking him?" the monster cat demanded. "He is my prisoner!"

"Not any more!"

Aristotle tried to grab the doctor, but the Green Ranger slapped the cat's paw away. The vet jumped over a few zombies that were laying on the ground, and ran toward the exit.

"Stop him!" the monster shouted, but the moment of distraction allowed Mary to punch him in the cheek.

Two zombies headed toward the man, but the Red and White Rangers grabbed them from behind, and allowed the prisoner to escape. They quickly beat up the two zombies, and then ran over to help Mary, who was getting slashed repeatedly by the cat monster.

Oorjit and Isabelle both jump-kicked at the same time, hitting the monster so hard he crashed through the wall. Caroline knocked the last zombie down, and joined her friends. They all stayed where they were, unable to see through the thick cloud that was created when the wall got smashed through.

Aristotle walked back through it menacingly. The cat crouched down, then it leaped through the air and slashed Isabelle's head before landing on the other side of the room. Aristotle leaped again and slashed Oorjit, then the other two one by one.

"He's fast!" the White Ranger complained.

"This cat can twist in mid-air," Oorjit added.

The Rangers got back up and summoned their weapons. Aristotle tried leaping at them again, but this time Isabelle's shield blocked the attack. Mary fired a bazooka blast, which the cat dodged, but it destroyed the other wall. The entire side of the building collapsed, which kicked up dust again.

"Ugh!" Caroline groaned. "Let's get out of here guys!"

They exited through the hole Aristotle had made before, and circled around the building. The cat met them halfway. He leaped at them again, aiming at Oorjit this time. The Red Ranger swung his light-sabre. The cat's eyes widened, then the monster twisted in the air and dodged the Ranger's attack. Caroline's hammer hit it from the side though, knocking him away.

Aristotle bounced off the ground painfully and hissed.

"I can't jump around them with their weapons drawn like that," he realized. "I'll have to fight close combat."

The monster ran toward the Rangers and dodged several kicks, slashes, and punches from the Rangers, before slashing the Blue and Red ones away. Mary put her bazooka away and used her arms to block a swipe from the cat. Isabelle hid behind her shield and tried to push the cat over.

Aristotle extended a claw through the shield and poked the Ranger behind it. Isabelle stumbled back from the pain, and tried to pull her shield away, but the claw stuck in it prevented her from pulling it back. Aristotle threw Isabelle through the air, and into Mary. They both crashed to the ground.

Caroline slammed the cat hit her battle hammer from behind though, and soon Oorjit's light-sabre was dealing heavy damage to her.

Aristotle retreated, and prayed to the Dragon.

"Oh, Awesome Dragon," he said. "Please grant me the power to become a giant. Their zord's won't be able to keep up with my movement in that form."

The Dragon saw fit to grant the request, and the monster was soon filled with new energy, enlarging above the nearby buildings.

The Power Rangers summoned their zords and combined to form the Multicultural Heritage Zord. Several buildings were immediately crushed, including part of a nearby mall. The Rangers ignored this, and focused on the monster coming toward them.

Like before, the cat leaped into the air and slashed the Megazord's head. The zord spun around, and immediately had to throw its arms up to block another slashing attack.

"I summon the Sun Shield!" Isabelle shouted.

"And the Mega-Lightsabre," Caroline added.

The two pieces of equipment appeared in the robot's hands, and the Rangers were able to block the next attack. They swung at it with their sword, but only nicked Aristotle's tail.

"Ow!" He hollered. "That stings!"

"Your trick won't work on us," Oorjit warned it.

"You may have a shield, but you still can't keep up with my speed!"

Aristotle got in close and dodged two attacks from the sword before kicking the zord in the leg. The MHZ tried to bash the monster with its shield, but Aristotle pushed back against it with his hands. The zord stumbled back, and the monster slashed it across the chest.

"AAA!" Mary yelled. "He's too quick!"

"We've got to slow him down," Oorjit decided. "Lazer eyes!"

Two white lazers blasted out of the zord's eyes and knocked Aristotle to the ground. The Multicultural Heritage Zord then jumped on top of the cat and pinned it to the ground. It began to slash the monster repeatedly with its sword.

Aristotle screamed in pain, but then coughed up a poisonous hairball that splattered in the zord's face. The Rangers couldn't see anything, and suddenly found themselves getting thrown off as the cat got back up. The Megazord tossed the Lightsabre on the ground and wiped the furball off. Their view was still dirty, but they could see well enough to fight again.

The cat took two swipes at the zord, but it backed away, and used the shield to block. Lazer eyes and hairballs fired a couple of times, but both combatants were able to dodge successfully this time. Then Aristotle slashed the zord's chest again, but this time, the MHZ used its free hand to grab the cat's arm. It then twisted the arm painfully before pushing the cat to the ground.

Finally, the MHZ got on the cat's back and pounded it mercilessly with its fist. It threw its shield away so it could get more punches in. The monster was helpless as the Megazord hit it over and over. Finally, Aristotle ran out of fighting energy and exploded.

Unfortunately, the explosion was similar to Mutanté's. It went off with an incredible force that launched the MHZ into the air, and created a humungous fireball. The Megazord was shattered into pieces, and the head was burnt to the point of being unrecognizable. It crashed on the other side of the Fraser River, and ejected the Rangers, who immediately demorphed.

They picked themselves up and looked across the river at the massive destruction.

"It happened again," said Oorjit. "Jawad said the monsters wouldn't blow up like that if the zords destroyed it."

"Did we at least stop the monster?" Mary asked.

They looked carefully, but there was no sign of any movement. Aristotle was gone, but so were many Deltans.

"We've got to get out of here," Caroline reminded the others. "Four people standing where the Megazord's head landed will be an obvious clue to the government."

The four of them turned away, and made their way back to base.

The explosion had been just as powerful as the one produced by Mutanté, but the region it occurred in had a lower population density, and many people in the area had fled during the battle. Still, an incredible fire raged across the region, and 10,000 people died. Another 20,000 were left homeless, joining the ranks of refugees.

The Canadian Army had to step in to help control the crowds, since there were no police to spare. Despite all of this, most people in Greater Vancouver felt a little bit reassured by that day's events. As horrible as the collateral damage was, at least the Power Rangers had proven capable of defeating monsters in battle, and there was hope that eventually, the city would be safe from whoever was attacking them.


	6. Car Wash

Chapter 6: Pizza and a car Wash

Isabelle had a rough night in the courthouse. That was where she had to sleep after the battle was over, since her home had become inaccessible in the aftermath of the battle against Aristotle.

Like Oorjit before, her home had been within a few kilometres of the monster's death blast, and had probably been damaged.

"I hope Peter and the kids are alright," she worried. She didn't know who would have been at home, and who would have been out. If they had all been inside the house at the time, they would probably be okay. If not, they might have been incinerated by the blast. "I have to get over there tomorrow."

All jurors were allowed to sleep in the courthouse temporarily until another tent city could be organized in Delta, which was undoubtedly taking place already. The news had been filled with images of wounded survivors trying to make their way to safety, and rescue workers were doing everything they could.

Fortunately, using the powers of the white Wood Carving had been improving Isabelle's health, and she was able to sleep on a blanket on the floor without it hurting her too much. She ordinarily would have had no hope of doing that at 90 years old. She managed to sleep for a few hours, but the next morning, she was on a train, and made her way down to Delta.

It took several hours for her to reach the emerging tent city, and it was already swarming with thousands of people when she arrived. She registered herself, but could find no sign of any of her relatives.

"Don't worry too much yet," a worker told her. "The house probably survived, and they might be trying to hold out in there."

Isabelle thought about trying to get home, but she was told that all of the roads were cut off. She settled into a tent, and tried to make herself comfortable.

Around dinner time, a teenage girl asked, "Is that you, Grandma?"

Isabelle turned and faced her. "Sarika! I'm so glad to see you!" She hugged her, and then asked. "Are the others okay?"

"Dad came here with me. We're both fine. Haroon was out of the house at the time of the attack though. We think he was in Vancouver."

Isabelle knew that people in Vancouver were largely untouched except at the southern edge of the city, and Haroon liked to go to the northern areas.

"He's probably okay too," she thought. "But where would he go after the blast?" She remained concerned, but she knew that she had nothing to complain about compared to many other people in the camp.

Several families were coping with the knowledge that their loved ones had been in the zone of total destruction, and were probably dead, but not confirmed as such. Most of them would have to wait for days or weeks for a body to be identified, and some would never know either way. There was much grieving and anxiety throughout the camp, and Isabelle's family was in relatively good shape.

Isabelle reunited with her son, Peter, and they tried to figure out what to do.

"The house is in pretty good shape," Peter informed her. The windows are cracked or broken, and a pipe burst, but otherwise we could have stayed there if we had had more water. We only had enough to last one day though."

"What about the car?" she asked.

"We drove it here. It's got broken windows too, and a few dents, but it works well enough. There's a kind of sprawling parking lot forming near the entrance. We can drive away any time."

"Then I don't want to stay here," the old woman stated. "As soon as we find Haroon, and a bank that works, we'll buy some bottled water, board up the windows, and go home."

While Isabelle was having a bad week, Oorjit was doing relatively well. The roads to his home had finally been cleared, and power restored, and he was able to return to his apartment for the first time in weeks. Inside, he found the place had been looted, and the windows were broken, but most of his furniture was left intact.

He spent the week boarding up his windows, getting a new computer, and tidying up.

"Thank goodness my bed's still here."

He flopped into it and was very glad to have something soft to lay on.

"And it's so quiet here," he realized. "The camp's chatter never ended, and it was only going to get worse with the new wave coming."

He gradually returned to his normal life, at least when he wasn't on Ranger duty.

It was mid-week when Isabelle finally got in contact with her missing grandchild. Haroon had been staying at a friend's house while searching the refugee camps in Vancouver, thinking that's where Isabelle would have been. When he called home, no one answered since the telephone lines were down. He had figured the house had been destroyed. When he went over to check it out anyway, he found his family was living almost normally, despite the damage all around them.

It had been a wild few days, but life was stabilizing at the Morton family. The kids' school would be having classes the next day for anyone who showed up, and Isabelle couldn't skip any more days at work. It was too dangerous, and she knew it.

So, Isabelle returned to her secret Ranger training for a few days until one week had passed from the previous monster attack. It was that morning that Jawad finally figured out a solution to a major problem they had been facing. At one of their daily meetings, the assistant explained his discovery.

"I've been translating the part of the ancient texts that deal with the destruction of monsters," he told them. "Their death explosions never seemed to be as big for the old Rangers as the ones we have been seeing."

"You mean fireballs bigger than buildings?" Oorjit asked.

"Exactly. The texts say that if a monster's energy is reduced to a low level, its vital functions will shut down, and all the magical energy it has left will be unleashed in a massive explosion. But if the monster is defeated with overwhelming force, then all of its energy will be gone, and there will be nothing to explode with."

"That's intuitive to me," Mary replied. "When we defeated Aristotle, he blew up before I sensed all of his energy being depleted."

"Jawad nodded, and then continued. "I recommend that when you've got a monster on the ropes, finish it off with one of your more powerful attacks in order to deplete as much of its remaining energy as possible. That should prevent us from having a refugee situation after every battle."

"We'll have to start practicing," Oorjit concluded. "It'll take good judgement to know when to use a final attack like that."

Everyone agreed and began to modify their training schedules accordingly.

The Dragon was in Surrey, with Blimpini floating above him. He had decided to move into the territory that his monster had conquered before since it was more secure than his mountain hideout. In front of him were the zombies that had fought the week before.

"Three of you fought impressively well last week," the Dragon mused. "It is good to have worthy candidates to choose from. But I believe that you were the best of all."

The Awesome Dragon pointed at a female zombie in front of him, and she approached proudly. The Dragon grabbed her gently, and began to pour his energy into her.

"I will turn you into a monster," he said, "that will enlighten another territory for me."

Electricity flowed out of his paws, and the zombie began to mutate.

The next day, the mutated zombie jumped through a wormhole and appeared beside a busy highway. She had been turned into a giant fish with flexible fins that could function like arms. The Dragon had already put her in giant form, believing the Rangers to have less of an advantage when forced to use their zords. The fish crushed a concrete barrier, then stomped on the road.

A car crashed into her foot, demolishing the car, but not injuring the monster at all. She fired a hypnosis ray down at the offending vehicle.

"You shall obey Sally!"

"I obey," the driver responded.

Sally hypnotized several other drivers that came her way, which caused traffic to pile up. Cars began rear-ending the vehicles that had stopped in the middle of the road, and a huge traffic mess began to swarm out of control.

Satisfied, the monster stomped off the other side of the road and approached a manual car-wash area, hypnotizing anyone that she could see.

At the Secret Crisis Centre, Director Gordon Brown shouted for the Rangers, who were studying inside the facility. He explained the reports to them about the monster fish causing a massive road collision and traffic jam.

"We've got to stop her!" Oorjit insisted.

The Director agreed. he handed out the authorization forms, which were dutifully signed and scrutinized. Then the Rangers morphed into action.

"Bear!"

"Moose!"

"Seagull!"

"Beaver!"

When the Rangers appeared, they looked in awe at the giant.

"The Dragon's going big right away?" Caroline wondered.

"We'd better get the zords out," Oorjit advised. They summoned them, and surrounded the fish.

The monster was sitting beside a Car Wash, giving herself a shower.

"It's so dry on the land!" she complained. "It makes my skin all sticky!"

"Stop right there!" Oorjit demanded from inside the Bear. "You have caused a massive accident by jay-walking across a busy highway, and injured innocent people. Surrender now, and we will peacefully arrest you. Otherwise we will stop you with lethal force."

Sally got up sneered. "I knew it was only a matter of time before _you _would show up."

She fired a blast of water out of her mouth, knocking the Bear to the ground.

The Seagull fired lasers at the fish, while the Beaverran toward it. Sally rolled away, crushing a pizza restaurant. She jumped above the Beaver, but was hit from the side by a rampaging Moose. Sally kicked the zord in the front leg, making it sink to the ground. The Beaver came back and tried to bite the Salmon, but Sally locked arms with it, and they began to wrestle.

"This is my chance," Oorjit realized. He carefully positioned himself beside the Salmon, then began to blast fire at her.

"AAA!" she screamed in pain.

The fire began to cook her like the fish she was. Caroline urged her Beaver zord to hold the monster in place so it would be hit by wave after wave of flames. Unfortunately, the Beaver took some damage from this as well, and eventually its arms gave out, and Sally escaped.

The monster rolled away desperately, crushing some cars as she dodged more flame attacks. She tried to fire another blast of water, but only a trickle came out.

"It looks like that dehydrated her," Mary observed.

"She must be low on energy," Isabelle added. "I think we should combine and finish her off."

Everyone agreed, and they formed the Multicultural Heritage Zord, summoning its giant sword. Sally rammed it, but the zord stayed on its feet and managed to throw her off. The monster landed on her back, and struggled to get up. As she did this, the giant zord charged up its sword and fired an extremely powerful laser attack. It tore through Sally and caused an explosion in the woods in the distance.

The monster howled with pain and exploded. But as Jawad had predicted, the explosion was much weaker than before. There was a strong gust of wind that broke some windows and knocked a few trees down, and some of the nearby motorists were knocked out by the concussive force of the blast, but nobody other than the monster died.

Inside the MHZ, the Rangers high-fived each other and celebrated.

Oorjit radioed the base. "Red Ranger here, the monster has been defeated, and we have lots of energy left. Requesting permission to proceed to a second battle."

"That's great news Red," Gordon answered, being careful not to use any real names in case others were picking up the signal. "You may proceed to another territory if you believe you are up to it. Be careful."

"You want to go after Blimpini?" Caroline inquired.

"I think it's time she saw what the Seagull can do," the Red Ranger answered. "As soon as we teleport, we'll separate and let Isabelle take that thing on."

They opened a gigantic wormhole, and the MHZ walked through it, emerging in a different part of the city, close to the hydro towers again. The zords disassembled as Blimpini noticed the company.

"The Rangers again?" she wondered. "Did you manage to defeat the Salmon?"

"That's right!" Isabelle answered. "And now we're gonna take you out too!"

The Seagull flew forward as the Blimp began to lift off the ground. She fired several laser blasts at the monster, and all of them made direct hits. The monster was knocked back by the hits, and didn't manage to do any retaliatory damage. She saw the other zords running toward her.

"Alert!" she cried. "All zombies report to battle stations! The Rangers are attacking!"

She moved herself toward a long, but low building nearby, trading laser fire with the Seagull as it made another pass. They both took damage from that one. The Moose was making wild shots, but none of them were hitting so far. But all of the zords were getting close now. Blimpini sunk behind the building to hide from fire and water blasts, causing the building to get damaged. The three walking zords stomped on the building, only to find massive nets being thrown over their zords. Zombies had been waiting in hiding, and leaped onto the zords, nets in tow.

When Isabelle flew over a second later, she got caught in a net as well, which caused her zord to crash to the ground hard. Blimpini immediately pounded the Seagull with a volley of laser fire while the other zords struggled to get free of the netting and get up. The nets were made of steel cable though, and had barbs that stuck to the wooden exteriors of the zords, making them difficult to remove in a hurry.

10 seconds of uninterrupted attacking time was all Blimpini needed to destroy the Seagull. Isabelle was ejected from the zord, and landed in a sea of zombies. The monster had hypnotized thousands of people after she conquered the territory, and hundreds of them were ready to battle any Rangers that got stranded. She immediately had to kick and punch this way and that to fend off the hoard of enemies.

Meanwhile, the Beaver had managed to free itself of the netting, and Caroline attacked the monster. Blimpini tried to dodge a water blast, but took a bit of it as she rose herself up into the sky. The Beaver jumped up and fired again, hitting the monster, but then she was too high for anything else to hit. Blimpini fired down and destroyed the Beaver, causing Caroline to join Isabelle with the huge number of zombies below.

The Bear and Moose escaped their netting, but by now there was nothing they could do. Like their previous encounter with Blimpini, they found themselves unable to hit a target that high in the air, and Blimpini was free to shoot downward at the defenseless targets. Even if she missed, all she had to do was be hit the ground nearby, and the force from the explosion would do minor damage.

The two remaining zords were soon destroyed, leaving the four Rangers fending off the zombies, with a huge Blimp monster hovering overhead, continuing to fire lasers at them.

Isabelle got knocked by a blast and went flying. She demorphed as a result, and a few zombies were killed.

"We have to teleport out of here!" Oorjit shouted. "Let's go!"

"I can't!" Isabelle yelled back, trying to fight off zombies without her powers.

Caroline and Mary got hit by another blast, causing them to demorph as well. With two zombies on his back, Oorjit leaped away from a blast aimed at him and landed by the two young women. He threw the zombies off, grabbed his comrades and leaped again to where Isabelle was, opening up a wormhole in the process.

"Go!" He told them. The three women jumped through just as another blast hit nearby. It wasn't close enough to completely demorph the Ranger. He only had a partial transformation, with his helmet disappearing, and his legs returning to normal. He jumped into his wormhole as another blast struck nearby. The Ranger landed with a thud in the Secret Crisis Unit. Three zombies were continuing to fight the demorphed Rangers inside, having gone through the wormhole while it was open. Fortunately, the demorphed women had grown in strength enough to be able to hold their own against the creatures. Oorjit helped them out with the last of his magical power.

With the zombies defeated, Oorjit fully demorphed, and sat on the floor, covering his mouth with his hands. The other Rangers knew went quiet as well. They all knew that was a close call. They had almost been killed, and lost everything to the Dragon.

"Drat," the Dragon growled. "Blimpini's trap was perfect, but the Rangers' ability to teleport makes them very difficult to kill. And now I have lost one monster, while Blimpini got weakened. I cannot rely on an aquatic monster in a land battle again. I need to be more careful next time."

He began to review his last monster's weaknesses, and thought about what his next plan would be.


End file.
